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|                            A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
|                                    http://www.ainfos.ca/ 
| ________________________________________________
|
| If I can open with just a personal remark of my own, it is a very
| moving experience for me to be here. I have followed as best I can
| the noble and tragic history of the Kurds in Turkey in past years
| from everything I can find, particularly in last ten years. But it is
| quite different to see the actual faces of the people who are
| resisting and who continue to struggle for freedom and justice.
|
| I have been asked repeatedly to express my opinion about the
| rights of people to use their mother tongue. As a linguist I have no
| opinion about the matter. As a human being there is nothing to
| discuss. It is too obvious. The right to use ones mother tongue
| freely in every way that one wants -- in literature, in public
| meetings, in any other form -- that is a primary essential human
| right. There is nothing further to say about it.
|
| The campaign of the past weeks of the students, mothers, fathers
| to petition for the right to have elective courses in ones own
| language is again simply affirming an elementary human right that
| should not even be under discussion. One can only admire the
| courage of people who are pressing this campaign in the face of
| repression and adversity.
|
| Beyond the matter of cultural rights, which are beyond discussion,
| obvious rights, there lies the world of difficult, intricate 
questions
| of political rights. These issues are arising all over the world.
|
| One of the healthy developments now taking place in Europe is
| the erosion of the nation-state system with increasing
| regionalization. In areas from Catalonia to Scotland, there is a
| revival of traditional languages, cultures, customs and a degree of
| political autonomy leading towards what may become -- and I
| think should become -- an arrangement of regional areas that are
| essentially autonomous within a federal framework. In fact
| something like the old Ottoman empire. There was a lot wrong
| with the Ottoman empire, but some things about it were basically
| correct: mainly, the fact that it left a high degree of regional
| autonomy and independence within a framework, which
| unfortunately was autocratic and corrupt and brutal, but we can
| eliminate that part, and the positive aspects of the Ottoman
| empire probably ought to be reconstructed in some fashion.
|
| And within that kind of framework, which I hope will be evolving,
| one can, I think, look forward to an autonomous Kurdistan, which
| can bring together the Kurds of the region, the tens of millions of
| Kurds of the region, into a self-governing, autonomous, culturally
| independent, politically active region, as part of a broader
| federation of -- one hopes - friendly and cooperating national and
| ethnic and cultural groups.
|
| The next question that arises has to do with the methods of
| struggle to achieve such ends. Here the primary question is
| whether these methods should be violent or non-violent. Here we
| have to distinguish two kinds of questions: moral questions and
| tactical questions. With regard to the moral questions, my own
| personal view is that a very heavy burden of proof is required for
| anyone who advocates or undertakes the use of violence. In my
| view that burden of proof can very rarely be met. Non-violent
| protest is more appropriate morally, and tactically as well.
| However, there is a fundamental principle of non-violence: "you
| do not preach non-violence unless you are willing to stand
| alongside to the people who are suffering the repression."
| Otherwise, you cant give that advice. Im not in a position to stand
| next to the people who are suffering repression, so I can only
| express my opinion, but not give advice.
|
| Its a characteristic of history for oppression to lead to resistance
| and for resistance often to turn to violent resistance. If it does, 
that
| resistance is invariably called terrorism. Thats is true for
| everyone, even the worlds worst mass murderers. So the Nazis
| for example described what they were doing in Europe as
| defending the population against the terrorism of the partisans. In
| their eyes, they were defending the legitimate government of
| France against the terrorist partisans who were directed from
| abroad. The same with Japanese in Manchuria. They were
| defending the population from the terrorism of Chinese bandits.
| Propaganda, no matter how vulgar, always has to have some
| element of truth in it, if it is to be credible at all. And even in 
the
| case of the worst mass murderers like the Nazis or Japanese
| invaders there was an element of truth to their claims. In some
| perverse sense their claims were legitimate, and the same can be
| said about the claims made by others: the United States, Turkey
| and other countries, who claim to be defending the population
| against terrorism.
|
| With regard to the concept of terrorism there are really two
| notions: one is the notion "terror," another is the notion
| "counter-terror." If you look in, for example, US Army manuals,
| they define "terror" and they define "counter-terror." And the
| interesting thing about the definitions is they are virtually 
identical.
| Terrorism turns out to be about the same as counter-terrorism.
| The main difference is who is the agent of the terrorist violence. If
| its someone we dont like, it is terrorism. If its someone we do
| like, including ourselves, it is counter-terrorism. But apart from
| that the definitions of the actions are about the same.
|
| Another important difference between terrorism and
| counter-terrorism is that what is called "counter-terrorism" is
| usually carried out by states. Its the terrorism carried out by
| states. And states have resources that enable them to be far more
| violent and destructive than private terrorists. So the end result is
| that the terrorism of states far outweighs that of any other entity 
in
| the world. We constantly read that terrorism is the weapon of the
| weak. That is totally false, the exact opposite of truth. Like any
| other weapon, terrorism is used much more effectively by the
| strong, and in particular by more powerful states which are the
| leaders in terrorism throughout the world, except that they call it
| "counter-terrorism."
|
| Now we hear every day that there is a "war on terrorism" that has
| been declared by the most powerful states. In fact that war is
| re-declared. It was declared in 1981, twenty years ago. When
| Reagan administration came into office, it declared that the focus
| of US foreign policy would be state-sponsored international
| terrorism, the plague of the modern age; they declared that they
| would drive the evil out of the world. The war has been
| re-declared with the same rhetoric, and mostly by the same
| people. Among the leaders of the first "war against terror" twenty
| years ago are the ones who are directing the current "war against
| terror," with the same rhetoric and very likely with the same
| consequences.
|
| The focus of the first war on terrorism was Central America and
| the Middle East. And both of those regions were scenes of
| massive terrorism in the 1980s, the major part of it, by far,
| conducted by the US and its clients and allies, on a scale with few
| recent precedents in those regions. There is no time to go
| through the details, but in the Middle East for example, the most
| extreme terrorist act by far was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon -
| supported, armed, backed by the United States -- which killed
| about 20,000 people for political ends. There wasnt any
| pretence. It was openly recognized in Israel to be a war to
| promote the US-Israeli policy of assuring effective control over the
| Israeli-occupied territories. And thats only one example of the
| terrorism in the region that was either carried out directly or
| decisively supported by the US, exceeding other cases by a
| substantial margin.
|
| In Central America, the Reagan administration at first attempted to
| follow the model of John F. Kennedy in South Vietnam, which
| would have meant attacking Central America directly, using
| chemical warfare and napalm, bombing with B52s, and invading
| with American troops. But they had to draw back from that
| intention, because the population of the US had become
| considerably more civilised in the twenty years that intervened,
| through activism, protest, and organization. Therefore the Reagan
| administration had to withdraw from direct outright aggression as
| in South Vietnam, and instead turned to international terrorism.
| They created the most extraordinary international terrorist network
| that the world had ever seen. When a country like Libya wants to
| conduct a terrorist act, they hire an individual like Carlos the
| Jackal. When a big powerful state like the US wants to carry out
| international terrorism, it hires terrorist states: Taiwan, Israel,
| Argentina under the neo-Nazi generals, Britain, Saudi Arabia.
| Other terrorist states carry out most of the work, along with local
| agents. The US supplies the funding and the training and the
| overall direction. The effects were horrendous: hundreds of
| thousands of people killed, every imaginable kind of torture,
| everything you know about from Southeastern Turkey in the past
| ten years. And it finally succeeded in crushing popular resistance.
| There was also a kind of "clash of civilizations" involved, to
| borrow a currently-fashionable phrase: the US was fighting
| against the Catholic Church. The Church had made a grave error:
| it had adopted "preferential option for the poor," a commitment to
| work for the benefit of poor people, the vast majority. That was
| unacceptable. The war was to a large extent directed against the
| Church. The terrible decade opened with the murder of an
| archbishop. The decade ended with the murder of six leading
| Jesuit intellectuals. In between, many priests, nuns and
| layworkers were killed and of course tens of thousands of
| peasants and workers, women and children, the usual victims.
|
| The terrorism was so extreme that it even led to a condemnation
| of the US by the World Court for international terrorism, and an
| order to terminate the crime and pay reparations. There was also
| a supporting resolution of the Security Council of the United
| Nations, calling on all states to observe international law, directed
| to the US, as everyone understood. The World Court decision
| was simply dismissed with contempt and the war was immediately
| escalated. The Security Council resolution calling all states to
| observe international law was vetoed.
|
| All of this is gone from history. It is history, but it is not the 
history
| that we hear. Since the same war was re-declared on September
| 11 -- by many of the same people, with the same rhetoric - there
| have been endless reams of paper devoted to the new "war on
| terrorism," but you will have to search very hard to find any
| reference to what happened during the first "war on terrorism" that
| the same people carried out. Thats gone, and its gone for very
| simple reasons: Terrorism is restricted to what they do to us.
| What we do to them, even it is a thousand times more horrible,
| doesnt count and it disappears. Thats the law of history as long
| as history is written by the powerful and transmitted by educated
| classes who choose to be servants of power.
|
| Let me turn to the Middle East. The British of course ran the
| Middle East for a long time. They were the dominant power, and
| they had a framework for controlling the region. At first it was
| controlled by direct armed force. But after World War I, Britain
| was weakened, and it was no longer in a position to rule the area
| by direct force. So it turned to other techniques. The military
| technique it turned to was the use of air power to attack civilians.
| Air power had just become available, so Britain began bombing
| civilians with aircraft. Also it turned to poison gas, primarily 
under
| the influence of Winston Churchill, who was a really savage
| monster. Churchill, as colonial Secretary, ordered the use of
| poison gas against what he called "uncivilised tribes": thats Kurds
| and Afghans. He ordered the use of poison gas against these
| "uncivilised tribes" because, he said, it will cause a "lively 
terror"
| and will save British lives. Thats the military side. Its worth
| remembering that poison gas was the ultimate atrocity after World
| War I.
|
| The details of this we are not going to learn. The reason is that
| ten years ago the British government declared an "open
| government policy," to make the government more transparent so
| the people, citizens could learn more about it. The first act of the
| open government policy was to remove from the Public Records
| office all the documents having to do with the use of poison gas
| against the uncivilised tribes. So that history is gone.
|
| There was also a political side to the control of region. The British
| concept was to create what they called a "Arab fagade": that
| means weak states that would depend on British for support and
| would serve as a "constitutional fiction" behind which the British
| would exert actual rule.
|
| When the US displaced Brtain it essentially took over the British
| model. The region is to be run by an Arab fagade of weak, corrupt
| states, which rely on outside support for their survival; they are to
| administer the region. In the background is the US with its military
| muscle when it is needed. And the US has a kind of attack dog,
| which is called "England," and sometimes seems as much an
| independent country as Ukraine was under Soviet rule. Its main
| function is to carry out the services it learned during its centuries
| of experience - the services described by the leading British
| statesman Lloyd George, who wrote in secret that "We have to
| reserve the right to bomb the niggers." Thats important, and
| thats the British role when the master need some assistance, or
| the pretense that it is acting for the "international community" - a
| term that means the US and whatever other country agrees to go
| along.
|
| The US did add an innovation. It added an intermediate level of
| peripheral states, states that would be "local cops on the beat" in
| the words of the Nixon Administration, who used the American
| idiom: the "local cops on the beat" are the police who are working
| in the streets. In this case, the "local cops" are subsidiary states.
| Police headquarters is in Washington. Turkey was the first one.
| Turkey is the "local cop on the beat," with the task of ensuring
| that the Arab fagade is protected from their own population, the
| most dangerous enemy. Turkey was one of these, Iran under the
| Shah was another. After 1967, when Israel destroyed the centre
| of Arab nationalism, it joined the alliance. Pakistan was a member
| for a long time. The idea is to have non-Arab states that are
| militarily powerful, and can protect the Arab fagade from
| indigenous forces that have strange ideas: for example, the idea
| that the wealth and resources of the region should go to them,
| instead of going to rich people in the West and their local
| associates. Such ideas are called "radical nationalism" and they
| have to be suppressed: by the "local cops on the beat," who have
| the first responsibility, and if they are not a sufficient threat 
then
| the US and the attack dog move in, using the local cops as bases.
|
| Oil was the primary reason for the concern over the Middle East.
| There is now a secondary reason, which is quite important. Thats
| water, which is enormously important, and will be even more so in
| the future as water resources are being depleted. Here the role of
| Turkey becomes even more essential, because Turkey, and
| particularly the southeast region of Turkey, is the major source of
| water for the region. And control over water also provides what
| US planners 50 years ago called "veto power," just like control
| over oil. If you can terminate the flow of water to other countries,
| that will bring them into line. Thats presumably a significant
| purpose of the dams and other projects: to ensure that control
| over water will be in hands of US clients, which will ensure control
| over the region and probably a veto power over recalcitrant
| elements.
|
| The enormous US support for the massive atrocities of the 1990s
| in this region, which are some of the worst in the world in this
| period, is based on the role of Turkey within the US system of
| domination of the region. Its not out of love of the Turks. It is out
| of love for the services that Turkey can perform in the region. If
| Turkey succumbs to "radical nationalism" - that is, independence -
| it will suffer the same fate. The same is true of US support for
| Israel and other client states. If they perform their function they
| are fine. If they get out of line it will be different. We see that 
right
| next door in Iraq. As long as Saddam Huseyin was only gassing
| Kurds and torturing dissidents and massacring people on a huge
| scale, he was just fine. Britain and the US continued to support
| him. After his worst atrocities they even continued to provide him
| with the means of developing weapons of mass destruction, along
| with aid and assistance that he badly needed, until he made a
| mistake: he disobeyed orders. Thats unacceptable, so he
| therefore has to go, probably to be replaced by some similar
| figure. And the same is true for other client states. They are
| acceptable no matter how many atrocities they carry out as long
| as they continue to fulfil their functions within the world system: 
to
| ensure that the rich and powerful receive what they deserve,
| namely the wealth of the region and its resources and markets,
| and so on.
|
| Lets turn briefly to the last topic: September 11th. What we hear
| constantly is that after September 11th, everything changed.
| There is a good rule of thumb: if something is repeated over and
| over as obvious, the chances are that it is obviously false.
|
| In this case, after September 11th very little has changed. Policy,
| goals, concerns and interests of the great powers remain as they
| were. There have been some changes. For one thing, there is
| now a window of opportunity for harsh and repressive elements
| throughout the world to pursue their policies with increased
| intensity, exploiting the fear and concerns of their populations,
| and expecting support from Washington.
|
| As always repression elicits resistance, and thats true in this case
| too. In the US, contrary to what the headlines and intellectual
| commentary tell you, since September 11th the population has
| become more open, more questioning, more dissident, more
| involved in protests, more concerned with ongoing developments.
| The same is true worldwide. Two weeks ago there was an
| international conference in Brazil, the World Social Forum, which
| brought together about 60,000 people from around the world, from
| popular movements, farmers, workers, environmentalists,
| womens groups, all kinds of people. They organized many very
| serious and constructive forums and discussions devoted to major
| problems of the world. This is the core of the worldwide popular
| opposition that is designing, and seeking to implement, programs
| that run counter to the global policies of transferring even more
| wealth and power to hands in which wealth and power are
| already concentrated.
|
| The same is true right here. In Turkey, both Turks and Kurds are
| resisting courageously, working for changes that will make the
| society more open, liberal, free and just. They are a model that
| Western human right activists admire and should learn from. They
| are providing an inspiring example of what can be done under
| extremely harsh conditions to overcome repression and state
| violence to create a more decent and humane society. Their
| struggles and their goals are an inspiration for others to do more.
| And again, thats why it is tremendous privilege and honour
| personally for me to stay with you for a few days here.
|
| As you know Kurdish language has been suppressed in Turkey,
| and is has been kept out of the educational system. What is the
| relationship between personal identity and the mother tongue?
| On the one side there is widespread use of English as a global
| language, and on the other there is a revival of local languages
| as a counter-trend to globalisation. In this context, how do you
| assess the revival of native languages in Europe and elsewhere?
|
| In Spain under the Franco regime, the local languages were
| suppressed. People could not speak Basque or Catalan, or other
| languages. And they are separate languages, not Spanish;
| Basque is not even related to Spanish. After Fascism was
| overthrown, there was a revival of these languages, which of
| course had never disappeared. People still spoke them in their
| homes, with their friends when the secret police was not listening.
| And they revived. I will tell you a personal experience: one of my
| daughters was living in Spain after the fall of Franco regime. She
| was living in Barcelona, and when I was in Europe speaking I
| went to visit her. This was two years after the fall of Franco, and
| there wasnt a sign of Catalan. Everything on the streets was
| Spanish, the signs were Spanish, everyone on the street spoke
| Spanish, just travelling there you would not know that the
| language of the people was Catalan. I went back five years later
| and there was no Spanish, there was only Catalan: the street
| signs were Catalan, the books were Catalan, the school system
| was Catalan, the language just revived. The same thing is
| happening in the Basque country and other places. And
| elsewhere, for example, inside the UK. So, Welsh for example,
| was not heard much not very long ago. Now if you go to Wales
| and listen to children coming out of the school, they are talking
| Welsh. The language has been revived. It is a part of a healthy
| movement within Europe away from the nation-state system
| towards what is sometimes called a "Europe of the Regions," a
| federation of regional areas with their own language, culture,
| political autonomy within a bigger federation. And thats extremely
| healthy. What the questioner said about personal identity is quite
| true. Your personal identity is very closely tied to your native
| language. If this is a language which is not permitted to be freely
| used for communication, for talk, for expression, for literature, for
| song, for any purpose, thats an infringement on your fundamental
| human rights. And it diminishes you as a person. Therefore it has
| to be preserved and recovered, and this can be done, as is
| happening in many places. The question of what will happen to
| local languages is a largely a matter of choice, not a matter of
| historical forces that are out of control. There was no way of
| predicting that Welsh would again become the language of the
| people of Wales, their literature and so on. There was no way of
| predicting that. It happened because they chose to achieve that
| result. Regionalization is taking place in Europe in reaction to the
| centralization of the EU. And I suspect that reaction to the
| centralization of whats called "globalisation" will also include a
| revival of local languages, cultures, interest groups of all kinds, 
for
| example feminist groups that dont have any geographical
| boundary. But that has to be achieved. Nothing is going to
| happen by itself. It has to be achieved like all other human rights
| by dedication, commitment and struggle. Otherwise it wont
| happen. As for English becoming an international language, thats
| a separate matter. Its a matter of who has been dominant.
| English is a world language because England and the US
| conquered the world. As the world becomes more diversified, and
| I suspect it will, there will be other languages of international
| communication. Thats quite apart from the question of the revival
| and the vitality of the regional and local cultures, languages, and
| literatures, and so on. These developments can quite go on quite
| in parallel.
|
| How do you define the notion of "freedom"?
|
| I would not even try. Its a fundamental basic concept that we
| understand but we cant define. We understand such concepts,
| but cant hope to define them in words. We define them by our
| actions and by our commitment. Freedom is what we make of it. If
| we stand against repression, authority and illegitimate structures,
| we are expanding the domain of freedom, and thats what freedom
| will be. Thats what we create; there is nothing to define in words.
|
| In the "new world order" of US hegemony, under what kind of
| treats is the notion of "culture"?
|
| Its a matter of will and choice. History doesnt have natural laws
| the way physics does. It depends on what people decide and
| choose. Thats why nobody can ever predict anything. If you look
| at the record of prediction in human affairs, you find they cant
| predict anything. The main reason is that too much depends on
| will, choice, determination and commitment. So what will happen
| to cultural freedom under new global conditions depends on what
| people like you decide to do. If you create and maintain vital and
| vigorous independent cultures, theyll exist. If you decide not to, if
| you want to just listen to Brazilian soap operas and drink soft
| drinks, they will disappear. But there is a choice.
|
| You are a US citizen who know to say "NO!" . We read from your
| biographies that you have been an anti-systemic dissident since
| you are ten years old. What is the secret in this?
|
| The secret is very simple. For hundreds of years in the US, as
| elsewhere, people have been struggling hard to enlarge the
| domain of freedom and justice and there have been successes.
| And the result is that people like me are lucky. We can enjoy the
| privilege of enjoying the freedom that has been won. These are
| not gifts, they are not in the Constitution, they are not in the Bill 
of
| Rights. James Madison, one of the main founders of the US
| system said that a "parchment barrier" will not defend against
| repression. Take any nice words you like, you have to give them
| their meaning, and the meaning is given by struggle and
| commitment. And it has been done over the centuries to a very
| significant extent. The result is that people in the US have
| freedom to a larger extent. The secret is to have a history behind
| you of people who dedicated themselves to creating a relatively
| free society. Thats the secret.
|
| What do you think, is the role of US in Kurdish Problem in
| general and in the handing over of Kurdish leader to Turkey by
| an international conspiracy, in particular?
|
| The US has a role in just about anything that happens in the
| world. It is the most powerful state in the world. It is concerned
| with developments here and it is undoubtfully involved in Kurdish
| affairs. Not just here, the same in Iraq. For example, the US
| supported a Kurdish uprising in Iraq, back in the early 70s, until a
| certain point came when an Iranian-Iraqi deal was made and the
| US decided to sell the Kurds out, and they were slaughtered.
| After that Henry Kissenger, who was in charge, was criticised in
| Congress for having first supported the Kurdish struggle and then
| abandoning them when they were no longer useful, resulting in
| slaughter. He made a famous comment, which was something like
| this: "Foreign policy should not be confused with missionary
| work." The same has been true here, in a particularly shameful
| way in very recent years.
|
| As you know the Kurdish opposition turned to peaceful means of
| struggle. What do you think about this new policy?
|
| You know better than I do. This is not the first time. In 1993, a
| ceasefire was declared by the Kurdish opposition. The EU tried to
| pressure Turkey to respond constructively to it. Instead, the
| Turkish government, with crucial US support, escalated the war.
| That led to years of further atrocities and destruction. There is
| now another move towards a peaceful political settlement. Its the
| right move in my opinion. The question arises what will be the
| reaction of the Turkish government, and this heavily depends on
| the US. Will there be constructive reactions? We have to try to
| make that be the case. As people in US, we have to try in our own
| way. It can develop further. Its the right direction, and I think it 
will
| lead to a fruitful outcome.
|
| As you know, there is a "Meeting of Civilizations" in Istanbul,
| where Kurdish civilization has not been represented. This
| meeting is supposed to be an antithesis to the "Clash of
| Civilisations". What is your opinion about the thesis of "clash of
| civilizations?"
|
| The fact that the Kurdish civilisation was not represented is for
| the same reason as the fact that Palestinian civilisation was not
| represented, or any other repressed group. These are meetings
| of powerful states and other powerful forces in the world. They
| dont represent anyone but themselves, and furthermore they
| dont represent civilisations. The lives of the Saudi Arabian elite
| probably center in London, and that is where they belong. Its
| probably where they will flee if there is an internal uprising they
| cant control. They have little relation to the people of Saudi
| Arabia, just as the ruling elites of other countries have little
| relation to their own population. The US government, for example,
| certainly does not represent the US population. The population in
| US strongly opposes some of the most important and basic
| policies pursued by the government, which therefore have to be
| pursued in secret. The talk about civilizations is mostly
| propaganda.
|
| As for Islam being considered the enemy, that is surely not true. In
| the 1980s the major foreign policy issue in US that dominated all
| discussion was the wars in Central America, and these were wars
| fought against Catholic Church, not Islam. The Catholic Church in
| Latin America, after centuries of serving the rich, had moved
| towards an effort to serve the poor, and at once it became an
| enemy. Many terrorist atrocities were directed against the Church.
| Was there a Clash of Civilizations? No. At the same time, US was
| strongly supporting the most reactionary Islamic state in the world,
| namely Saudi Arabia, which has been a US client since its origins.
| The US was also organizing the most extreme radical Islamists it
| could find in the world, because they were best killers, and was
| using them as weapons against Russia. Indonesia, the biggest
| Islamic state, was a wonderful friend ever since president Suharto
| took over in 1965 and carried out a huge mass slaughter killing
| maybe a million people, mostly peasants. He immediately became
| a great friend, and remained so while he committed some of the
| worst crimes of the modern era. In 1995, the Clinton
| administration described Suharto as our kind of guy. True
| enough. The world does not break down into clashes of
| civilisations, it breaks down into power interests that cross
| languages and cultures, and mostly are fighting against their own
| populations. The notion of "clash of civilisations" became popular
| after the end of the Cold War when some new propaganda
| framework was needed in order to mobilize people. It does not
| mean anything beyond that.
|
| What is the probability of a US attack on Iraq? How will this
| effect Turkey and the Kurds?
|
| This is an important issue that is in the agenda nowadays. There
| are two kinds of reasons for a possible US attack on Iraq. The
| first is domestic, internal to the US. If you were an advisor to the
| Bush administration, what would you say? Would you say, "try to
| focus peoples attention on the Enron Scandal, and the fact that
| the proposed tax cuts for the rich will undermine all social
| programs and will leave most of the population in serious trouble?
| Is that what you want the people to pay attention to, policies like
| these? Obviously not. What you want is for people to be
| frightened, to huddle under the umbrella of power, not to pay
| attention to what you are doing to them while serving the interests
| of narrow rich and powerful sectors. So you want to have a
| military conflict. Thats the domestic side.
|
| In the international side, Iraq has the second largest reserves of
| oil in the world. The first is Saudi Arabia, Iraq is the second. US
| certainly will not give up control of this huge source of power and
| wealth. Furthermore, right now, if the Iraqi oil were to come back
| into the international system, it would be largely under the control
| of Russia, France and others, not US energy companies. And the
| US is not going to permit that. So we can be pretty confident that
| one way or another the US is trying to ensure that Iraq will
| re-enter to the international system under US control. Now, how
| do you achieve this? Well, one plan, and this plan has been
| discussed in Turkey as you know, is for the US to use Turkey as
| a mercenary military force to conquer Northern Iraq with ground
| troops while the US bombs from 20,000 feet, The compensation
| for Turkey could be that it will get control of the oil resources of
| Musul and Kerkuk, which it has always regarded as part of
| Turkey. And for the US, that will block its enemies -- Russia,
| France and others -- from having privileged access to the oil of
| that region. Meanwhile the US will take over the South in some
| fashion. What happens to the Kurds? I hate to think about it. It will
| probably be a terrible slaughter of one kind or another. They will
| be right in the middle of this. For Turkey, apart from the question
| of right and wrong, it would be a very dangerous move. And its a
| very dangerous move for the US as well, if only because it could
| blow up the whole region. It could lead to a revolution in Saudi
| Arabia. Nobody knows. Elements of the Bush administration are
| pursuing these and similar plans, and you can see the logic.
| Whether they will be allowed to implement such plans is another
| story. Im rather sceptical. I think the arguments against it are
| probably too strong. But they dont know themselves, and surely
| no one else can.
|
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